Greetings from Christmas, Florida

You know how when you live somewhere you take the little things in stride and forget that out-of-towners might think something you see every day is actually quite cool?

Enter the town of Christmas, Florida. We're a stone's throw from Christmas and are quite used to seeing the year-round Christmas decorations at the main intersection. Don't make the mistake of getting excited about Christmas. It's not a quaint little town worth going out of your way to visit. It's rural homes, cows, trailer parks, auto salvage businesses, a gas station, a post office and a park with a historic fort. It doesn't have it's own police or mayor or anything and most people would drive through it and hardly notice they aren't in rural East Orlando anymore.



But when it's time to send Christmas cards, living near Christmas is great. Locals know that it's well worth the visit to the Christmas Post office to send your Christmas cards.


They'll be postmarked "Christmas, Florida," and you can borrow one of their ink stamps to stamp a message from Christmas, Florida, on to your cards.

(I forgot to photograph this myself)
Oddly enough, this year the postal workers are requiring you to give them your Driver's License in exchange for the ink stamps that say Christmas, Florida on them. When you're done stamping your cards, they give you your DL back and you can be on your way. Apparently last year all those stamps were stolen when they were just on a table in the lobby. Says a lot about people when they'll steal an ink stamp meant to adorn Christmas cards.


But we did it today - the boys chose a green candy cane Season's Greetings stamp and we put one on the back of each of our Christmas cards before sending them off. I believe this is an essential part of the Christmas Post Office experience in case someone rips open your card without noticing the oh-so-awesome postmark on the front.


So there you have it - a peek into Christmas, Florida, where it's Christmas year round!

Road Trip :: Fort Myers Beach Shrimp Festival

I took the boys on a road trip this weekend back to my U.S. hometown to visit mom and take the boys to the Fort Myers Beach Shrimp Festival. The Shrimp Festival and Parade is about the biggest thing that happens on the 7-mile-long barrier island where I grew up. The entire island shuts down for the parade and festival and it ends with the crowning of the Shrimp Queen. The parade started in the 1950s when they blessed the Shrimp Fleet and held a big beach party. It's now grown into a fun small-town parade and festival where they serve huge plates of peel-and-eat shrimp fresh off the shrimp boats.


It was fun taking the boys to see their first ever parade and it totally took me back to my childhood where I watched and rode on floats in plenty of shrimp parades. There's something so great about a small town parade - it's all the great slices of a small Florida beach town that you'd expect - it's a little quirky, a little trashy, a little touristy, a little taste of America that kids in big cities never get to experience.


Here's a taste of the Shrimp Festival and Parade for you.


This group of golden oldies was preparing for the parade and I couldn't resist snapping this photo of them lining up in their bikini shirts.


The rear view on the parade route was even better.


Of course the shrimp princesses vying to be shrimp queen were on the backs of the corvettes and waving appropriately to the crowd.


This group of older ladies were dressed like pink fluffy birds and loudly cawed and flapped their feathers in unison down the parade route. I have no clue what they were representing, but they were enjoying themselves.


And this Kookie band uses kazoos and washboards to make quite a racket.


And what's a parade without a old guy in a Fez?


Of course everyone loves the Shriners in their Flintstone cars, although most kids today have no clue who the Flintstones are.


Did you know I'm terrified of clowns? Like seriously creeped out. I was not a fan of the clown float.


But I did like the guy blowing the conch!


And the seeing eye dogs had stars spray-painted on their rear ends.


There were plenty of floats with people throwing out beads and candy. My boys ended up with so many beads they could hardly stand. Many of the beads had shrimp beads on them, which were really cute. My old elementary school was marching in the parade too. It's a small island school with only 9 kids in the kindergarten class.


Then we went down for some Peel and Eat Shrimp, which we snarfeled up with gusto.



And finally we caught part of the judging for the much-coveted Shrimp Queen title. Even when I was a teen I eyerolled at the Shrimp Queen contestants. I've never been a beauty pageant kind of girl, but it's fun to watch them vying for the title of Shrimp Queen. Now THAT's something for your resume.


The weather was gorgeous - the island was hopping - the boys had a blast - and I had fun going home to see my old neck o' the woods. Fort Myers Beach is off the Southwest coast of Florida and is connected to the mainland with a bridge on either end. It's known as "the world's safest beach" and is a great family-friendly place to visit off-season. It's a bit too busy during tourist season for my tastes, but it's worth the hassle of the traffic and the tourists to experience the Shrimp Festival!

We rode the Polar Express!

We took the boys to Sea World the other day to show them some of the Christmas awesomeness at the park. The big highlight of the trip was the Polar Express exhibit. It's held in The Wild Arctic ride, which is a motion-simulator ride that takes guests to the frigid north and once you get there, you walk through into the cold exhibit with the beluga whales, polar bears and walruses. At Christmastime they change the simulator ride to a Polar Express ride and decorate the entire exhibit to match the scenes from the movie perfectly.


Like most little kids, my boys are huge Polar Express fans so they were coming out of their skin when they saw the Polar Express sign. When you first walk in they lead you to a small room and show you a short movie on the screen. This time the room was decorated just like the boy's room from the movie, complete with a hanging airplane from the ceiling and a radiator under the movie screen that let out steam when the train pulled up. The screen looked like a window, so when the train pulled up it was totally believable.

When his bedroom door opens, you're led to an area that looks like it's covered with snow - complete with the oven mitt snowman from the movie. The Wild Arctic ride has been painted to look just like the Polar Express train. The employees are in conductors outfits and they're pumping in a very realistic pine tree smell into the room that smells nothing like the little tree that hangs from the rear-view mirror of a car and everything like a real forest.

When you board the ride, it starts a simulator experience like you're going to the North Pole - just like in the movie. The boys were squealing with excitement. When the other doors open, everything is completely decked out with lights and garlands, but it's dark and cold and the beluga whales are swimming in a faux-ice enclosure. They're pumping a freshly-baked chocolate chip cookie smell into this area, which was so amazing.


They have a real-ice wall that my Florida boys are completely intrigued with and in the middle of the room is a replica of the big Christmas tree from the movie.


On the other side of the tree is something that made my boys do a dance and run around and stare - the Santa and sleigh from the movie, complete with the big red sack of presents. Do you see my little one looking up at Santa with a total WOW vibe?


The rest of the exhibit is filled with little props from the movie, from Billy's present to the Believe ticket.



Just past the polar bears you come to a stand where they're selling cups of hot chocolate for a dollar. They're also pumping a nice rich chocolate smell into this area, which all but forces you to buy some hot chocolate. Since sodas are about $5 at Sea World, getting a drink for a buck was great.

It was just a super fun experience for the boys and really added to the magic of the season for them.

When we left there we went to the sea lion exhibit and I got some great photos of a mama sea lion and her baby and a big fat sea lion that reminded me of my Lab that passed away earlier this year.




A note to parents: If you buy a basket of fish for your kids to throw to the sea lions, be sure to PICK UP your three-year-old so they can easily throw over the plastic barrier. If you don't, you risk the child chucking a fish at full force into the barrier causing a spray of raw fish juice to cover you and said child that doesn't go away for the rest of your day. I'm not going to say how I know this….trust me on this one.

Trip to the Farmer's Market

Farmer B had to work again this weekend so the boys and I trekked out to the local Farmer's Market for a look around. I'm embarrassed to say that we've never been to the Farmer's Market before, but it's quite a drive and it always gets put off, especially since it closes up shop at 1 pm and is only open one day a week. Today was the day to finally make the drive out there and I'm so glad we did.

The Winter Park Farmer's Market boasts that its Central Florida's number one produce and plant market. It's located at an old train depot in the picturesque city of Winter Park. Parking was easy, the atmosphere was great and it was a wonderful day out.











The boys favorite part of the day was watching the real kettle corn cooking over the fire - and of course eating the entire bag between them (with my help). I loved all the fresh produce, flowers, coffees, cakes, pastries, breads, honey, cheeses and homemade foods. There were so many people and dogs enjoying the day and it made me realize how much I miss having Baillan around. Rommel is a great dog, but I miss having a big, fat, yellow lump on the end of a leash. I told myself I'd get another dog once Jace starts kindergarten, but that's a long way off...

We'll be sure to make this Farmer's Market part of our normal routine now and try to hit it up as often as we can. Since I'm not growing much myself right now at least I can support local farmers who do know how to grow things right.

Road Trip :: Sites from Sanibel Island

Just like snowbirds in the wintertime, my idea of blogging while on vacation has taken a serious dive south. The only place we have internet access here is by the pool and although it sounds quite romantic to work on your laptop next to a pool, you have to remember that I have two small boys who are drawn to water in a most insane way. So me staring at a laptop with a towel draped over me so that I can see the screen wouldn't win me any parenting awards as I wonder what those two large annoying splashing sounds were.

I realize there's nothing more painful than being forced to thumb through someone else's vacation pictures. You're interested at first, but then wonder how many more pictures there are as you nod politely and start mentally preparing your grocery list in your head as photo after photo of someone else's vacation flips by.

That being said, here are some photos from our trip so far. And as you're compiling your grocery list, remember to buy milk.

Brown pelicans - two adult, one juvenile.


Red hibiscus


Pink hibiscus


Marsh rabbit


The beach


Great Blue Heron


Egret


Sunset

$100 gas card up for grabs!

I'm a featured travel writer on Road Trip Journal this month and I'm up for a Reader's Choice Award! Road Trip Journal is an online magazine featuring road warriors and the small communities they love. Road Trip Journal is a great place to start planning your next road trip with first hand accounts and recommendations by other road warriors who have been there-done that!



I heard about RTJ from a couple of blogging friends and decided to submit a couple of my travel pieces. I figured I had nothing to lose, but then they all got chosen for the site and I got paid for it too! I have three featured articles on there this month that you've seen on my blog: Blue Spring State Park, Ponce De Leon Springs State Park and Gatorland.

The editors chose the Blue Spring State Park piece as one of the featured entries for their Reader's Choice Award. I'm up against five other travel pieces for the month of April, and many of them are "real" travel bloggers so I'm not sure that my chances are spectacular, but it's still fun to be in the running.

The winning blogger gets a $100 gas card, which is very appealing to me - especially with a 10-hour round-trip planned to Sanibel Island later this month. The best part - you could win a $100 gas card too! Once you vote and enter your email address, your name gets put into the monthly drawing for a $100 gas card.

So, here is my shameless request… read the articles that are up for the April Reader's Choice Award and if you like my piece on Blue Spring State Park… vote for me!! And if you like one of the other pieces better, well go ahead and vote for one of them. Regardless you'll still be in the running for that gas card. Plus if you write any travel pieces for your blog, go ahead and submit them - you might get paid for your hard work too!

Thanks!